Coming Soon: Zombie Stomp!

“Hey! Hey! Do the Zombie Stomp!”

Okay. So that’s Ozzy but it’s still a cool song. The Zombie Stomp never really
took off like the Monster Mash or the Transylvania Twist but don’t short it.
It’s damn cool. Cool enough to be a game. That’s right. I’ve been inspired to
make a game, a board game, by Ozzy Osbourne himself.

Actually, this is all a lie. Well, not all of it, just the Zombie Stomp! part.
It’s still a game. But Zombie Stomp! has a much to do with Ozzy as Java (that’s
a programming language for all those non-techies) does with coffee. The only
thing they have in common is the name.

Imagine if you will a subluminal ship deep between the stars. A skeleton crew
mans the ship while the colonists slumber thoughtlessly in cryogenic
suspension. But, of course, something goes wrong. A strange artifact impacts
the ship and the folks in cryo wake up with a craving for
braaaaiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Zombie Stomp! is a game of this particular space horror. Two players face
off—zombies vs. humans — on a game board that is the deck plans of a deep-space
colony ship. Pawns representing humans and zombies are placed across the board
as the players try to eliminate each other.

The rules are simple:

Humans run two squares.

Zombies shamble one square.

Move one pawn per turn.

Humans may move two pawns one square on a turn.

An attack counts as one.

Zombies go first since no one expects a zombie attack.

If there is an attack, each side rolls a six-sided die:

High roll wins.

Ties are just that: a tie. Try again next turn

If the winner is a zombie, the human pawn becomes a zombie pawn.

If the winner is a human, the zombie is removed.

I’m not sure how balanced this game is, so I plan to do some play-testing to
see who wins more often. If there is an imbalance, I’ll give the zombies or the
humans the advantage of winning a tie and see what that does.

I plan to produce a PDF containing the rules and the game-board once
play-testing is completed. There might be a few surprises in there. We’ll see
what I can come up with for you.

This game could easily be played on a chess board. Take eight white pawns and
place them at one end of the board. Take eight black for the other side and
just start playing. You’d need at most eight additional black pawns to play in
case the zombie get lucky.

In fact, why don’t you play some games on a chess board—or some other board of
your devising—with your buds and tell me about it in the comments. I’ll
incorporate your feedback into the game, maybe include some of the boards, and
give props to everyone that helped.